


The Exclusive Principle

by Alethia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Graduation, High School, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-04
Updated: 2007-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 02:38:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alethia/pseuds/Alethia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean punched his arm. Sam didn’t flinch away even though he saw it coming. “What are you thinking? Of course I’ll be at your graduation. Idiot,” he muttered.</p>
<p>Sam almost looked chagrined and he shrugged. His shoulders hunched in a little bit after as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s just—Dad’s got a lead on the killings in the desert. He’s not gonna be able to make it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Exclusive Principle

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to guede_mazaka on the day of her birth and in honor of her graduation. Originally posted on LJ [here](http://alethialia.livejournal.com/261724.html).

Sam watched him too carefully, too casually hiding his interest. There was something going on there, but Dean couldn’t quite grasp—

“Dean?” he prompted.

Oh, right. Talking. Analyzing was more Sam’s thing anyway. And Dean was so very good with his mouth.

“I dunno, Sam. My social schedule’s pretty jammed this week.”

“Do you need to consult your day planner?” Sam asked dryly. But it wasn’t all there. He was playing at their game…just not all that well.

So he did what he could do: “Yeah,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Because, well, _duh_. “Yeah, of course I’ll be there.”

Sam’s closed-off expression cleared instantly and only after that did Dean realize how worried Sam had been. But for that much worry—

“Great!” Sam said, way too cheerful. 

Dean punched his arm. Sam didn’t flinch away even though he saw it coming. “What are you thinking? Of course I’ll be at your graduation. Idiot,” he muttered.

Sam almost looked chagrined and he shrugged. His shoulders hunched in a little bit after as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s just—Dad’s got a lead on the killings in the desert.”

“Indian burial grounds,” Dean offered.

“Right. And he said he’s not gonna be able to make it—” Sam’s voice caught a little and he looked away for the briefest of moments. Dean saw it all. “And I just wanted to see if you were going with him.” Or going with Sam, Dean’s mind supplied.

What was it with Sam’s either/or mentality? Choose Dad or choose Sam. It was like there was no way to do both for him. It wasn’t a matter of being physically _with_ someone. Loyalty wasn’t about that.

Dean waved a hand. Sam was loosening by the minute. “Indian burial ground. Dad can handle it. He’ll call us in if he needs us. Besides, I want to see my little bro in a dress.”

That one caught Sam in his sweet spot just like Dean knew it would. He was _so_ good. “It’s not a dress. It’s a gown. Judges wear them.” 

“ _Women_ wear them. Our society has elevated cross-dressing to a sanctified ritual. We should definitely insert mud-wrestling into it somewhere.”

“Yeah, well, you might envy me with what you have to wear.” Sam rolled his eyes, like why must he put up with this? Now he was all open and readable but maybe Dean didn’t want that, seeing as Sam had jumped from worry to annoyance in less time than it took Dean to come up with a good insult.

The bad insult might have something to do with that, though. And…wait, what?

Dean stilled. This hadn’t come up. “What? There were no dress-code discussions before I agreed.”

Sam’s expression went mocking, mouth rounded in an ‘o’ of surprise. The after-school light streaming in through the window painted him gold. “Should have checked the fine print. Sloppy, sloppy,” Sam needled.

“Wait, no, what are we talking about?”

“All older siblings have to wear tutus,” Sam declared, deadpan.

Heat swept through him a beat, little pinpricks of light running down his spine, but Sam’s expression was again too neutral. “Ah, fuck you,” Dean groused.

Sam cracked up, doubling over as he—manfully—giggled. “Your face!” He caught himself on the wall by the window, all dimpled and sun-kissed and happy. The jerk.

Dean nodded, matter-of-fact. “I hate you.”

Sam straightened with effort. He held his stomach, like it was necessary for him to keep his guts in place he was laughing so hard. His face was red. “Would you wear a tutu for me, Dean? Really?” His eyes twinkled.

‘Maybe,’ floated through his mind, but there was no way he was saying something as girly as all _that_.

Dean affected a pose: one leg forward, shoulders back, a statuesque warrior here to save the world. Or deflower some virgins. Was this an either/or type of situation? “I’d rock that tutu, I have you know. I’d make it manly. And hot. Your classmates would swoon.”

“Can I see that? I’ll pay you.” Sam looked like he actually would, eagerly leaning forward and cutting into the light from the window. The shadow fell across Dean’s lower half.

“You don’t have any money. The most valuable things you own are your books and you know I’d only use those for kindling.”

Sam mock-gasped. “Take it back, you uncultured, heathenish barbarian.”

“Or as rolling paper,” Dean amended, knowing how it would scandalize the boy. He waggled his eyebrows.

It totally failed to scandalize. What the fuck? 

Sam just looked at him frankly. “Smoking a fatty off Aristophanes? Now that’s appropriate,” he said, dry as anything.

Aww, man. Sam was starting to get immune to his humor. He was actually gonna have to work at it?

“I can’t wait to see that day,” Dean agreed. “So, you’re wearing a dress, I’m wearing leather—if you were someone else, I’d worry about your virtue at the end of the night.”

“Oh, no, actually. I wasn’t kidding about that. You should probably wear a suit.” Sam didn’t look like he was trying too hard or joking or pulling a fast one. He just looked…serious?

Dean laughed anyway. “That’s a good one, bro.”

“Dean.” His voice took on that stern note that he got whenever he was about to lecture about “appropriate” and “blending in” and “living in the world not above it.”

Yawn.

“Aw, man,” he whined.

“Look, I’ll go with you and we can pick something up. It’ll be quick,” Sam offered. The fact that he was negotiating meant he was back to worrying. Dean scratched his head and didn’t let on that he knew.

“You’re not going with me. I’m not a girl. We don’t travel in packs. I’m perfectly capable of getting a suit. I just don’t want to,” he grumbled.

Something soft flicked into Sam’s eyes and dammit. Why could he never say no? Why did they have to be here, in this overly-formalized society? He was pretty sure if he were in Podunk, Iowa he wouldn’t have to wear a suit to Sammy’s graduation. Or Lawrence.

But those thoughts led nowhere good.

***

“What size collar are we looking for?” Suzy-the-sales-woman asked him primly. He liked the way her black suit molded to her figure and so he might have been a little slow in answering.

Not that he had an answer.

“Uhh, I have no idea?” he said blankly.

Her brown eyes flickered. “Were you under the impression they came in one-size-fits-all?” she asked, still prim, but wow, that was just bitchy.

“I honestly hadn’t thought about it. Contemplating clothing sizes isn’t high up on my priority list.” Number one: making sure Dad and Sam didn’t kill each other. And that was it for the list. That one took up most of his time, really.

She pressed red, red lips together like he’d insulted her. “I’ll get my tape measure.” She left with a swirl of a nice skirt and a whiff of perfume that made Dean’s nose itch.

He hadn’t meant to offend her or anything. And if you were so sensitive about your job, well, you needed to get over it. It’s not like he’d have flipped out if she’d gone off on a tirade about hunting. He would have called her an idiot, but he wouldn’t have refused to do his job.

Dean looked around at stacks of shirts. Seeing as Suzy had disappeared, it looked like he was on his own. 

Well. His neck couldn’t be that big. 

***

The girl writhed a little, her twelve-inch-max skirt hiking up to show off some red lacy panties. Dean grinned and sat back, content to watch the show. He had forever to do this, to wallow in this feeling. He looked at his hand and oh, right _on_. The beer was cold when he took a swig. His eyes moved back to her, noting all the points of interest, her lips, the way her dark hair feathered over her shoulders and snaked down her back. 

Dean took another drink; the beer tasted like manna straight from heaven. Or maybe it was the visual. His senses were getting intertwined but it was cool. He’s get around to untangling them and enjoying them individually.

Something soft hit his head and he jolted, dream-girl and dream-beer gone just like _that_.

“What the—”

“Dean, we gotta go,” Sam’s voice said urgently.

Dean blinked and the world focused…and reality came crashing in. “I was having the best dream,” he whined. He turned his face into his pillow and tried chasing after that beer. And those panties. Mmm.

Sam hit him with the pillow again.

Dean made an annoyed sound. “What? They hold graduations this early?” Sammy had completely failed to mention that one because if he had it might have been a deal-breaker. Dean looked at the clock. Six a.m. _Would_ have been a deal-breaker.

“It starts at eight. We gotta go.”

“Eight? That’s, like, twelve hours from now.” He could have been balls-deep in her by then. The kid had absolutely no respect for the lack of play in this town.

Sam then made an annoyed sound, which was completely unfair seeing as _he_ was the one waking Dean from fantasy-land. “It’s two hours from now and I have to be early. So _get up_.”

Dean grumbled, but sat up, rubbing at his hair. He squinted at Sam. The dawn light painted him blue and made him look so _young_. He was blinking more than usual. Aww, baby boy was nervous. That or stoned. But this being Sam, easy guess which was the correct answer. 

“What am I gonna do at a high school for two hours?” he asked.

“Ogle all the now-legal girls,” Sam said without looking at him, now digging through their closet for Dean’s clothes. He tossed a slipper over his head, a dagger more carefully, and paused at the package of edible underwear. He looked over his shoulder, out from under his bangs, and tilted the package to and fro.

Dean grinned. “Forgot to use those. I’ll have to make a point of it. Maybe on one of those now-legal girls,” he said, snapping his fingers.

Sam rolled his eyes and waved at him. “Up. And please take a shower?”

“Whatever you say,” he agreed.

Sam stopped all movement, all that frantic motion repressed into perfect stillness. Such good training there. He narrowed his eyes and Dean could see the wheels turning. It was kind of cute. His brother, the little thinker.

“Whatever I say?” Sam asked, tentative. Testing.

Dean grinned. “I’d hate to go to your graduation with a boner like this. People might get the wrong idea.”

Sam’s face twisted into something base and long-suffering. Then he started out the bedroom door.

“Or maybe I should. All those now-legal girls should know what they’re missing,” he called after Sammy’s retreating back.

No answer. Aww

***

Fuck, it was early. He toweled his hair quickly, the motion generating some heat and waking him up a little more.

Which he shouldn’t _need_ to do because Sam should have told him. Not that he’d thought to ask about details. Silly him, he’d thought Sam had his back on that one.

The little traitor.

“Are you ready yet?”

Maybe it was the nervousness that was making his brother such a bitch. Or was he like this all the time? He couldn’t recall. His brain was still in a fog.

There better be coffee.

“I’m comin,’ I’m comin.’” Time to take a quick inventory and then they could go. Hmm, suit? Check. Dagger? Check. Condoms? Check. Should he bring his gun? Dean wavered. Something could happen; this was his life, after all. Then again, _high school_. He could leave it in the car. With all the others.

Where the fuck was his cell phone?

Sammy appeared, looking ten seconds from frantic, and Dean turned in a tight circle, eyeing the room. He had it…before. Sometime.

Sam held out his hands. “Are you ready?”

“I can’t find my cell phone.”

“Dean. I’m gonna be late.”

“Stop acting like a chick late for a nail appointment. It’s not like anything important is going to happen in the first five minutes.”

“I’m giving the introductory speech! I have to walk in with the principal. I can’t bust in in the middle and run up to the conspicuously empty seat next to him.”

“Bonus points for the SAT word, dude.” The kid had taken them, just to prove a point. Typical.

“Dean!”

“Sam! I need to find my cell phone and then we go. You know what Dad says: always be prepared.”

“That’s the Boy Scouts.”

“Eh.” He grinned at Sam’s exasperation. His brother was so much fun.

“Look, I’ve got mine. I’ll even keep it on. If Dad can’t get you, he’ll call me.” Sam nodded, like if he nodded then Dean would agree. He was a little tempted, actually. Might be the lack of coffee. “And just watch him call in the middle of my speech,” Sam added. 

Dean hedged. It didn’t feel quite right, but Sam had started to get a little manic and Dean didn’t want him falling on his face in front of his entire graduating class. Well, actually, it’d be wonderfully hilarious for Dean, but Sam would undoubtedly turn into a sulking, brooding five-year-old and, like, never forgive Dean for causing him, not the public embarrassment, but the ruin of his carefully-crafted speech. 

“Did you charge the battery?” he asked sternly. He pinned Sammy with a look.

“Jeez and you call me neurotic. Yes, the battery is charged. I get cell reception in the gym. I—or more like Jack Ripper—paid the bill. C’mon, let’s go.”

“All right, all right. No need to get pissy about it.”

***

“So what’s this diploma gonna look like, anyway? Can we draw pretty pictures on it?”

Sam snorted. “I dunno; we don’t get it until a couple weeks after.”

“What? I got up at six in the morning to watch you get an empty folder?”

“No, you got up at six in the morning because I asked you to.” His voice held a warmth to it, like he was stating fact, yes, but he was also aware of the meaning underneath. It softened something in Dean. He didn’t bother volleying back.

His brother certainly had turned perceptive. And…sadly meditative. Or something. Why was he thinking about this crap when he should be maneuvering himself into goodbye blowjobs from the local floozies?

Silence settled between them, thick as a blanket and equally comfortable. The streets were less empty than Dean would have thought, people passing by in their cars with little morning waves. 

Ceremony and politeness. Bizarre. Give him a sea of people to get lost in any day. He didn’t need familiarity, thank you very much. Everything he needed could be packed up in this car.

“Did you ever think of going to college?” Sam broke the quiet suddenly with his question. It derailed Dean’s thoughts and he took a second to catch up.

And then he caught up.

Uh-oh. “No.” Sam shot him a look, which he caught in his peripheral vision. “Well, yes. But only for the booze and the girls.” He shot Sam a winning grin. That would so shut him down.

“Yeah,” Sam said quietly. 

Dean knew there was somethin’ roiling underneath Sammy’s surface. And he didn’t trust it. It was never good when Sam got quiet. Even if listening to he and Dad go at each other was about as pleasant as being chained up by a banshee. In a cave. With echoes.

Sam was loud and incensed by the world and _intense_. He didn’t do quiet, whatever his teachers might think. He didn’t do passive. He didn’t do agreeable. 

He was doing it now.

Dean’s spidey sense was blaring in his head, like wailing sirens and flashing lights and a house on fire, but worse.

And another thing about Sam? You couldn’t change his goddamn mind once he took to a thought.

***

Sam reached Dean, hair flying and curling in the sunshine, pleased smile on his face. He held his cap in his hand, his diploma under him arm and he looked…happy. Free. Light with his head all haloed in gold.

Their eyes met and held and that something passed between them, that feeling he always got, of such connection.

Even if his brother was a horrendous nerd.

“Guiding light for the future, Sammy? Really?” Dean asked.

“It’s graduation. At graduation everyone is innocent and blameless and perfect, no matter how many small animals you tortured or kids you picked on.”

“Man, if you would have said that up there, _I_ would have paid _you_.”

“If I would have said that Principal Carlyle would have—what happened to your suit?” Sam asked, looking down Dean’s body.

The breeze tickled his stomach as it swirled around them. What?

“What?” he asked, spreading his arms. So he got rid of the jacket and untucked his shirt. No biggie.

“You—what happened to your jacket? Your cufflinks?” Sam asked, seizing a wrist and pulling at the floppy end.

“Those cufflinks are the spawn of Satan. You have to admit, Sam, they’re evil. They practically qualify as a medieval torture device.”

“You’re almost half-naked. I can see your chest,” he looked down, “and your stomach,” Sam hissed.

Dean shrugged and felt the breeze catch the part in his shirt and swirl over his chest. God, that was so much better. “So I opened a few buttons. Who cares?”

“Dean, you’re scandalizing the locals.”

Two lovely local specimens walked by just then. Their eyes traced Dean’s open collar appreciatively. Twin smiles curled slowly over their lips. Hair was flipped, hips swayed. Dean’s eyes might have glazed a little bit.

Sam hit him in the arm. Hard.

“Yeah, I’m so scandalizing the locals,” Dean said, grinning slyly. “It’ll be my graduation present to you. Which one you want?” Dean eyed Sam again. He had all tensed up and wasn’t answering. Dean sighed the sigh of the woebegone. “Fine, you can have both. God knows you could use a good three-way.”

It was a hard thing, but he’d do it for Sammy. Because he was that good a brother.

The girls had walked right on by, but they both looked invitingly over their shoulders at Dean. Their skirts swung up in the back, exposing several inches more of tanned legs. Dean’s mouth watered, just a little.

“Never mind. _I_ could use a good three-way,” he said, starting after them. 

Sam grabbed hold of his upper arm and wouldn’t let him go. “Can’t let you do it.”

Dean groaned and dropped his head. “Seriously, this town sucks. I’m getting tired of my own right hand.”

“Switch to your left. And you don’t want those two, trust me. You’d catch something.”

“My life is a sad, tragic affair. With no affairs,” Dean bemoaned. 

Sam chuckled, low, right beside him. Like always.

The thought cheered him.

He straightened and gave Sam his most charming grin. “Well, if you’re not up for debauchery and depravity—and I do mean _up_ , it’s so sad for a man you’re age—” Dean looked to the vicinity of Sam’s crotch. Sam shifted and glared at him. “Then the least I can do is get you drunk.”

“You realize I’m only eighteen, right?”

“Rules are for other people. C’mon. You can choke all over your shots again. It’ll be fun.”

“For who?” Sam asked, affronted. 

“Me, of course.” ‘Cause duh.

***

“Hey, gimme your cell. I need to check in with Dad.” Truthfully, Dean had planned on forcing Dad to congratulate Sam. Even Dad wasn’t so heartless as to keep that from his valedictorian son. Not when he knew how much it meant.

“Not right now,” Sam dismissed. He smiled politely and nodded at a group of kids as they came into the bar—that forced politeness thing Sam did and Dean did not. What was the point? Not like it changed anything. They were still in their little groups and Sam was by himself. They had no business being with those people.

“No, c’mon, right now.” Because it wouldn’t count in Sam’s mind if Dad said it tonight or tomorrow.

“Dean. I said no,” Sam insisted. His eyes flashed when Dean forced him to meet his gaze.

Dean blinked. “You don’t have it, do you?” Sam stayed stubbornly mute. For once. “I don’t have mine, you don’t have yours, what if something happens?” He lowered his voice and leaned in. “What, you expect me to call upon my wealth of knowledge about smoke signals? Develop psychic powers?”

“Nothing’s gonna happen,” Sam said sullenly. He traced a crack in the wood of the bar with a precise finger. He didn’t meet Dean’s eyes.

“But it could,” Dean protested. He shook his head and leaned back, almost blown by the thought. “Of all the stupid, irresponsible, selfish—”

That one got Sam’s attention. He jerked back to sitting straight and bored a look into Dean. “Yes, Dean. I’m so selfish. I wanted my brother with me—me, not off thinking about the father who couldn’t be bothered to even come to my graduation. I can’t believe how very selfish I am.”

Dean made a frustrated noise. “Dude. We’re gonna have all sorts of time to hang out now that you’re out of school. We don’t have all sorts of fathers.”

Sam’s face flickered through a series of emotions and eventually settled on neutral. That was…off. Where was the blowjob obsession? The desire for fun? The…blowjob obsession?

“Yeah,” Sam said, not agreeing at all. “I just wanted a day to be about what I accomplished. About me instead of every nameless, faceless victim we have to save.”

“That’s just stupid,” Dean said. “You’re my brother. Of course you’re more important.”

“Thought I was selfish?”

“It’s not mutually exclusive. Both can happen at once: you can be important and so can Dad. I can come to your graduation and still worry about what he’s doing.” Honestly, the fact that he couldn’t see this—

Sam met his gaze, head-on. The door opened behind him, haloing him in light, a flash of brilliance behind him. “No, Dean. Sometimes you have to choose.”

***

They stepped out to see a dramatically-setting sun, like light’s last death. 

Oh, right.

Dean pulled out the little box, tied with a simple bow. He thrust it out to Sam, who took it absently.

Then he really blinked at the box in his hand—smaller, somehow, then when Dean had considered it—and looked back to Dean. His eyes were a little shocked.

Well, he’d tried to get him blowjobs and a nice threesome and Sam was having none of it. He had to get the kid something. _He_ would have appreciated someone throwing sluts at him when he graduated, but then again, he hadn’t really needed the help. Also, he hadn’t been so big on the school thing. Beyond the aforementioned sluts, of course.

“It’s a box,” Sam finally said. He wore that expression he got when he was sitting at the table, doing his homework. Correction: that expression he _used_ to get. No more homework now.

“It’s your present,” Dean said, just in case that wasn’t clear. Entirely possible it wasn’t. The Irish car bombs might have been a bad idea. The bartender had certainly looked at him like he was speaking Urdu. Under water. With a lisp.

That or he was hitting on Dean. Kinda difficult to tell some days.

“You got me a box for a present.”

“Look in the box, genius. You sure you’re first in your class?”

“Mm-hmm. Grady and his parents held a conference with the principal and tried to take it away from me.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t known that. Lucky for Grady he’d been unsuccessful; they wouldn’t be staying around for much longer and Dean had no reason to be on his best behavior anymore. “But he didn’t,” Dean prompted when Sam seemed like the story would end there. Mostly because he had lifted the box up to the sky and was looking at the bottom like…well, who knew why? Because he was Sam.

Sam craned his neck to look back and Dean and grinned. “Don’t mess with the Spanish skills, dude.”

“See? Something to thank Dad for, right there.”

“Yeah, a month in Mexico chasing phantom witches? Grady never stood a chance.”

“That’s the old Winchester spirit,” Dean agreed.

“Beating everyone else into submission…yes, it is. Also, counts double on college applications.”

Dean’s world went quiet as Sam turned back to the box. He shook it and listened to it rattle.

“Not that you would know,” he said at last. He watched Sam closely.

Sam wiped a hand across the universe. “I know nothing. Hear no evil, speak no evil.”

“When I was a child, I spake as a child—do we really want to go there?”

“Dude, you never put away childish things. Also, I’m opening this now.”

“The suspense is killing me,” Dean quipped.

“I knew it; you don’t even know what’s in here.” He untied the ribbon and curled it into his palm. The lid came off next and Sam’s eyes softened when he lifted out the gift. He fingered the leather.

“A protection bracelet.”

“Yep. Knotted it myself.”

Sam shot a disbelieving—and in Dean’s opinion, dirty—look. He should really have more faith in his big brother.

Not that he was wrong or anything. “Okay, I watched an old Mexican shaman knot it _himself_. Not like you’ll need it, though, not with me around.”

Sam turned suddenly wistful, smiling crookedly. “Yeah,” he said, gruff. “Thanks, Dean.”

“You are welcome. Now, here’s your choice: we can go back to our place and watch bad TV or we can get in the car and go hunt some badass Indian spirits. And just so you know, I reserve the right to reverse your decision.”

Sam’s lips twisted. “You’re letting me choose without giving me the choice? Should I feign shock? Should I fear for my life?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Whatever we do, it’ll be fun.”

***

Fin. Feedback is adored.


End file.
